I have stainless steel open shelving in between two doorways and it works out well for us...and saved us money on uppers!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Here are a few pics of open shelves continuing around a corner:

Here's a picture of a wrap-around shelf from my inspiration file. I'm hoping to put something like this in my kitchen in place of an upper cab. Not sitting on the counter like this one, but that would be nice too ...

thanks for the pics all!

Sabjimata, I love your kitchen. Stainless steel shelves were an option, but I think wooden is winning out since our gc can build them for cheap :-)
Chicagoans, those white wooden shelves are exactly what I was looking for to show our contractor.

Just one thought on the open shelving...you have to be neat and organized. All those open shelves could be very messy, otherwise!

I recently did a post on no upper cabinets as a new design trend. There are several picitures all with kitchens that have no upper cabinets and most have shelves. I love the openess no uppers bring to the space. Also most kitchens had extra windows in place of the cabinetry and the light is wonderful.

Here is a link that might be useful: No upper cabinet photos

Had some open shelves in the old kitchen. Have a couple in the new kitchen. One word warning:

Dust.

What we're trying to combat the dust issue is a box mounted to the wall (kind of like a cabinet with no doors, but not even quite that involved)---I saw a kitchen in Sunset that did something similar, and it seemed like a great way to put a buffer both between our shelves and our stove and to have a "top" to the shelf to keep dust from above out. Theirs was actually custom designed to have "cubbies" the right size for each type of dish, which was a neat idea. No clue if it will work or not, though...

Oh yes, dust! I will be having uppers too, since I don't have the lifestyle to have lots of open shelving. But, on my window wall I am adding two shelves, one for plants and the other as a display space. So just a bit of shelving...

Willowdecor, just read thru your blog post, it was great. Loved seeing all the beautiful kitchens. Wish I had the views for no uppers. I think large kitchen windows look so nice instead of cabinets.

Wood sounds great!

Well, I'll post back in a week. My backsplash (brick style 3x12 crema marfil marble) is in, but the shelves are not yet. I think I'm going to like it. Each shelf opening is about 10.5 inches.